Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

Canova is a liar wrote:

Canova is a liar wrote:

Ronald Kwemoi says Hello

Marco Pantini and his 65 HCT send greetings as well.

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

OOPS forgot the abstract:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11950139

Oh Yeah....Here's a meta-analysis of the effects of EPO and endurance exercise:

Subway Surfers wrote:

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

Or the occasional super-responder that comes along:

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/i-took-epo-to-have-an-equal-chance-says-athlete-51094.html

From 30:35 (2002) to 27:33 (2004). ?

A ~10% improvement in about 21 months. Probably the exception rather than the rule but nonetheless he cheated himself to the National Irish record and the Olympics "A" standard.

Lolz (to quote mindweak) ? kind of dwarfs Aragon's placebo.

You mean Chad?

Not to mentiom that your summary leaves the impression that elite runners were improving their elite times in an "all in" type effort, there is even a clear error, because the group wasn't on average 1.03/2.12 runners, but those whose personal record was full/half marathon had on average those times.

These "should've been worse"— type of sentences you make about different conditions etc are the reason to have the control group in the first place. The truth is that the third test was still another only moderately fast ran with additional uncontrolled training and third attempt to learn the test protocol. And the effort was 0.7 RPE points higher than the baseline value (P value was 0.11, so the tendency was clear albeit statistically not significant), so faster speed should've been expected regardless if EPO effect. The 1.2 % increase in a 3K TT after placebo injections I mentioned comes from the discussion part of that 2018 study itself.

Another weird item that should raise eyebrows is that while Vo2max increases tend to go hand-in-hand with TT/run to exhaustion performance in research papers, none of the Vo2max changes (pre vs post EPO) are statistically significant in this study. Here a 5.9 % (statistically insignificant) increase in Vo2max increased TT performance by almost equal percentage (4.6 %) whereas in a controlled 3 km TT from the 1980's, Vo2max had to be elevated by 11.9 % to elicit a 2.0 % increase in performance.

My earlier quotation that the research should be replicated with a control group before jumping into conclusions comes also from the authors themselves, so even they see some strange anomalies in the results.

The key conclusion from my part is this. Any change in guys doing submaximal and relatively easy efforts can be as well motivation than something else because the key limitator isn't physiological.

To correct an error from my part, the Vo2max increase of the Kenyans (actually 6.2 %, my 5.9 % was calculated from another chart) was statistically significant, which doesn't change the conclusion that speed increase is far too high when compared to the increase in oxygen engine at least when taking into account the earlier researcg. In fact, in the last test four weeks after the rHuEPO administration has ended, Vo2max is elevated by only 3.1 % which is statistically not significant whereas TT performance is more than that compared to baseline (-3.4 %) which is a statistically significant huge figure and at the high end of TT performances of blood doping studies.

Because the conclusion is that the only non-psychological performance variable (Vo2Max) isn't better in the last test whereas partly motivational (submaximal speed) is, everything points to the direction that most of the performance enhancement was only psychological throughout the study.

Aragon wrote:

the effort was 0.7 RPE points higher than the baseline value (P value was 0.11, so the tendency was clear albeit statistically not significant)

Aragon wrote:

In fact, in the last test four weeks after the rHuEPO administration has ended, Vo2max is elevated by only 3.1 % which is statistically not significant

Because the conclusion is that the only non-psychological performance variable (Vo2Max) isn't better in the last test whereas partly motivational (submaximal speed) is, everything points to the direction that most of the performance enhancement was only psychological throughout the study.

Wow. Impressive cherry-picking!

Casual obsever was right that I ignored the "eliteness" of the Kenyan subjects, falsely accusing them of being sub-elite on the basis of their 9:00 time trials. No longer ignoring it, thinking this through a little more, and trying to put it in perspective, the "eliteness" of the Kenyan subjects makes a complete mockery of this study and any conclusions that these improvements were significantly the result of EPO. I remind everyone that the conclusion from 2013, and again in 2018, is that the Scots and Kenyans showed similar improvements, ~5%, after the EPO interventions, and this is the basis for "calling out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runner". Putting aside whether the difference between 5.7% and 4.6% is statistically insignificant, we have a comparison between the Scots who tried (RPE = 18-19) and the Kenyans took the time trials less seriously (RPE=14.6-16). If Aragon says 1 RPE is about 10 heartbeats, my personal experience is that is around 20 seconds per kilometer increase in pace. In any case the 1.5% RPE increase was about 26 seconds (roughly the same without considering heartbeats). This means, if the Kenyans tried harder, we are talking somewhere in the ballpark of the Kenyans running 1 minute faster than they did, if they had tried just as hard as the Scots. I've never been confident in RPE being objective, so how can we put these efforts in a different perspective? What if we use Daniels VDOT to determine equivalency? Recall we are talking about 1:03/2:12 runners performing 3000m time trials, on EPO, about as fast as Mary Cain's high school record of 8:58, as an 18 year old. Simple VDOT calculations means that 1:03/2:12 runners should be capable of running 3000m under 8:00. Further VDOT equivalencies: The baseline time trial was 9:22, or marathon pace, or 29 sec/km slower than 3K pace The first EPO time trial was just under 8:58, or half-marathon pace, or 21 sec/km slower than 3K pace The fastest Kenyan in all the time trials ran around 8:30, or 10K pace, or 13sec/km slower than 3K pace The 4.6% difference for the Kenyans was a 26 second improvement, or less than 9 sec/km. Recall, the fastest Kenyan, around 8:30 in the EPO time trial, should be able to run sub-8:00 CLEAN, or 6.25% faster than the fastest EPO time trial. I think it is fair to say that these borderline elite athletes could have easily improved their 3000m time trial performance, from marathon pace to half-marathon pace, not to mention 3K pace, without any EPO. The best of these borderline elite athletes should have been capable of another 6.25% improvement faster than the fastest EPO time trial, 8:30, COMPLETELY CLEAN. In other words, the study showed a 4.6% improvement for athletes running at 85-90% of their CLEAN potential, rather than 100-104.6% of their CLEAN potential. At the very least this underscores the need to conduct a better study, before we can say "Take that CANOVA! Scientists confirm EPO works on top Kenyans too!"

Aragon wrote:

Not to mentiom that your summary leaves the impression that elite runners were improving their elite times in an "all in" type effort, there is even a clear error, because the group wasn't on average 1.03/2.12 runners, but those whose personal record was full/half marathon had on average those times.

...

The key conclusion from my part is this. Any change in guys doing submaximal and relatively easy efforts can be as well motivation than something else because the key limitator isn't physiological.

You still haven't read the study.

There are a number of loaded assumptions there. The fact is that when you say 25 years, with very few exceptions, we don't really know which coaches and athletes have been using EPO and succeeding for 25 years. And we don't have any real insight into the minds of the coaches and athletes, and their decision process, to determine if their thinking of risk and reward is the same rational thinking that you assume. On the contrary, there are studies that show many athletes, unlike the normal population, would chose to significantly shorten their lifespan in exchange for limited success. I assume you (or most of you in this forum) have never been in their shoes, evaluating whether to use EPO either for your performance, or your athlete's performance. So there is some amount of personal projection onto people who are not in your situation. Having said that, there are a number of different possible responses: - One counter example: Christian Hesch said he took EPO for 2 years before seeing any result. How long is too long before giving up? - By your criteria, even a 1% placebo effect would have been enough to reinforce the decision and continue using. These are not scientists trained to determine real causes in controlled situations. - Recall the point of my performance thread was to show 28 years of "very little success" since 1990 for most of the world outside of Africa. From this we could speculate: 1) You are right, many of them tried it and failed and stopped 2) Or you are wrong, and many tried it, and kept trying, and still many of the non-Africans failed to match the African performances, to within 2%, and very few even managed to outperform the previous generation of athletes. When you rank nations by known EPO usage, countries like Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Greece come out on top. When you then look at these nations when ranked by performance, the rankings are not comparable at all. You have a lot of countries trying, and not succeeding. Comparing the two rankings, you come out with one exception (not the general rule) in Morocco, and the top ranked performing East African countries are further down the top ranking doping list, around the top 10-15.

casual obsever wrote:

Weld On Johnson wrote:

The study of guys and gals trying it and smashing records is pretty iron clad.

^This. It's also absurd to claim that the managers, coaches and athletes were pro-EPO based on faith alone, for over 25 years! If none of them would have noticed better training and racing results after the EPO injections, they would have stopped by now, because no one wants to risk losing medals, money and reputation for doping without any benefits.

But, that also has been pointed out since years. Ultimately, the EPO-doesn't-work (for properly trained etc...) crowd has to propose that the managers, coaches, and athletes are so dumb that they put their faith over their very own training and racing results, and that the scientists are either corrupted by big pharma or incompetent, while these select few posters outsmart them all.

Feel free to correct any mistatements or contradictions.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

You still haven't read the study.

casual obsever wrote:

Aragon wrote:

the effort was 0.7 RPE points higher than the baseline value (P value was 0.11, so the tendency was clear albeit statistically not significant)

Aragon wrote:

In fact, in the last test four weeks after the rHuEPO administration has ended, Vo2max is elevated by only 3.1 % which is statistically not significant

Because the conclusion is that the only non-psychological performance variable (Vo2Max) isn't better in the last test whereas partly motivational (submaximal speed) is, everything points to the direction that most of the performance enhancement was only psychological throughout the study.

Wow. Impressive cherry-picking!

How are we at this point? Why do they insist that we have to thoroughly prove well "beyond a reasonable doubt" that it works on Kenyans? Really the onus is on the 'apologists' to show us evidence that it doesn't work on Kenyans or Ethiopians for that matter. Just imagine the FDA approving a drug that works on europeans/whites (LA, Hamilton, Lombard), East Asians (Chinese women runners and swimmers spring to mind), Hispanics, Arabs/MidEast and North Africans (Mourhit, Ramzi, Turks) and not black people; just imagine the howls in Congress at the racism of Amgen? And the truth is the testing for epo did include Africans in its test sample and that is why every hospital up and down Africa carries epo for treating anaemia and malaria, because it alleviates the symptoms, just like in every other part the world.

rekrunner wrote:

Feel free to correct any mistatements or contradictions.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

You still haven't read the study.

Seems you've found yourself an admirer Rek

In any case, all of the figures I gave came from the 2014 PhD thesis -- which I did read. If you have found contradictory evidence, I welcome and actively seek it.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

You still haven't read the study.

Thank you for referring to the last test in your earlier reply, because without it I wouldn't even noticed the key discrepancies. Obviously you have no explanation why 4 weeks after rHuEPO administration had ended there was enough surplus of RBCs to increase TT performance by 3.4 % (or even more if the wind etc. caused the conditions to have been "worse" in the last test run as you claim) whereas there was simultaneously so little surplus of RBCs to increase Vo2Max only by 3.1 % which is almost a random fluctuation.

Because there is some momentum in the scientific community to discuss the brand new research paper, I will forward my few "cherry picked" items to someone in that community perhaps to have their opinion about the subject matter.

Again, thank you buddy!

Aragon -- what is new in 2018 compared to the 2013 comparison?

By "test" I referred only to the last test conducted during the study. As far as I can tell, the only new information in the 2018 version of the study is the data on the PBs because practically all the relevant data has been available online since around 2013-15.

Aragon wrote:

Again, thank you buddy!

You are most welcome. That was fun. More facts are always good.

Btw, I don't mind your cherry-picking, but it looked quite comical directly after you accused others of doing so.

I'm still waiting for someone to show me how injecting rEPO helps circumvent the laws of physics?